Reaction to Gender and Communication in Social Work Education

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The differences of communication between male and female gender affect social work education when the 3 areas are concerned: training students for social work, interaction between staff members and interaction between students and faculty members. Communication is one very significant tool in the social work where teaching and developing of relations is concerned. This article explains gender difference from perspective of cross-culture. Men listen to act accordingly and women listen so that they could complete some missing scenario and ask more questions than men. Conversation topics are started by women though concluded finally by men. According to research, women interrupt more and generally males talk more. There are many biological and psychological theories which explain these differences. These differences could better be understood when communication which is cross-cultural takes place. According to Borker and Maltz (1982) women and men of America are from varied sociolinguistic cultures and have learnt conversation rules differently. Language rules are taught to children at an early age. Little girls work and interact within small homogeneous boys-girls groups and make supportive comments whereas boys go for bigger groups and make challenging comments. When they group up, these patterns continue and sometimes misunderstandings occur due to such differences. Women nod head to encourage speaker whereas men consider it to be a gesture for agreement. Men do not nod and women consider they are not listening. Women tend to use questions to continue or start off a conversation and men think it is because of less knowledge of women. Even though females give more affective response, still where nonverbal communication is concerned... ... middle of paper ... ...wards the conversations regarding feelings and emotions. According to what I have observed men are more open when it comes to expressing themselves as compared to women. It is rightly said that women acquire better skills when an interview is conducted as compared to men due to their self-disclosure and empathy etc. but men can easily learn them too if they make some effort by implying suitable facial expressions and appropriate overall demeanor and that is where the social work education plays its part. I also felt that it is majorly due to the different contexts in which men and women are analyzed that creates more difference. If some informal situation is considered and comparison made between the language and style of communication of men and women, there would only be some minor differences and more similarities where language and communication is concerned.

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